Oak Leaf Lost
by With-the-Wolves
Summary: Halt's new apprentice steals Will's silver oak leaf, Will is accused of being a liar, and Halt is still Halt.


**Thanks to tuglover98 for helping me with the plot of this story! And thanks to Preston McGinty for being named Connery!**

**So, because our first track meet is tomorrow, I thought I'd tell you all the three worst excuses for not running track. All of these were said by one of my friends, and #1 was actually said by my two best friends.**

**#3: I always lose! How are you going to _not_ always lose if you don't keep with it?  
#2: I don't want to do the workouts! At our school, everyone does the track workouts, whether you're in track or not.**

**And #1: The coaches always put me with the fast people! I tried to explain to them that all of the heats were in the exact same race, but they wouldn't listen.**

* * *

If anything good could be said about Halt's new apprentice, it was that he was pretty skilled in the areas that rangers should be skilled in.

He reminded Will of himself in that way. Of course, Will wasn't_ crazy_, but it wasn't really the kid's fault that he was.

Will had been teaching Halt's apprentice silent movement stuff when the whole thing happened. One moment, Will had been _trying_ to be a good teacher, and the next he had a knife in his shoulder!

He'd been visiting Halt that week, and he hadn't really payed his apprentice too much attention. The kid hadn't really said much, so it was easy to forget that he was there. Will couldn't even remember the kid's name!

At the time, Will had assumed that the kid was shy. Now he knew he had been wrong; the kid wasn't _shy_ at all!

Maybe it was because Will was still in shock over having a knife in his shoulder, and maybe it was because the kid was completely insane, but he got the best of Will much more easily than most people. Soon he had the ranger pinned to the ground, his saxe knife against the ranger's throat.

"What the hell?" Will said. He tried to yell it, but that's a little difficult when you're lying on your back with a knife against your throat.

"Halt scares me." The kid said, apparently assuming that this explained everything.

"He scares you?" Will asked. "What does that have to do with _any_ of this?"

The kid grabbed the cord around Will's neck, which held his silver oak leaf. He began to cut it with his knife.

"What are you doing?" Will asked.

The kid smiled as he succeeded in cutting the cord. He tied it around his neck. "I'm a ranger now."

Will stared at him. "No…You really aren't."

"I have a silver oak leaf, don't I?" The kid started to get to his feet. "Now I don't have to go through all that apprenticeship stuff."

Will got to his feet. "But being an apprentice is fun!" The kid raised an eyebrow at Will, although he couldn't do it very well. "And, um…Um…You learn important things!"

The kid shook his head. "Halt can't teach me anything; I already know all of these ranger tricks."

* * *

"…And then he just got on his horse and rode away, leaving me stranded!" Will finished telling Halt.

Halt raised an eyebrow at his former apprentice. "So you lost your oak leaf?"

Will looked offended. "No! Your apprentice stole it because he's insane!"

"Your shoulder isn't wounded, Will." Halt stated.

Will tried to look at his shoulder, but failed. "It would seem that it is. Hmm…Your apprentice is also a sorcerer!"

Halt closed his eyes. "You know, a week after Gilan met _you_, he didn't accuse you of being an insane sorcerer who stole his oak leaf."

"Yeah. Because I _wasn't_ an insane sorcerer who stole his oak leaf."

"He also could remember your name."

Will frowned. "That's not fair! My name is easy and only four letters long! Your apprentice's is like, twenty-two billion!"

Halt raised an eyebrow at his apprentice.

"Okay, fine, extreme exaggerations aside, he still has a difficult name to remember!"

Just then, Halt's apprentice came into the cabin. He'd been practicing his shooting outside, and he felt that he was getting pretty good.

"Connery." Halt said.

Connery looked over to where the two rangers were conversing. Will seemed to be a little agitated, though. Connery wondered what was wrong with him. "Sir?"

"Did you steal Will's oak leaf?"

"No…" Connery said, wondering why Halt even needed to _ask_ that. He shrugged to himself and headed back outside. Things were getting _weird_ in the cabin.

"Well, that clears_ that_ up." Halt said, looking back at Will.

"Well, obviously he's lying." Will said.

Once again, Halt raised an eyebrow at Will before going outside to tell Connery that he really wasn't getting pretty good. Or even good. Or even average.

_Well, I guess that could have gone better_. Will thought to himself. _But at least I distracted Halt from the fact that I lost my oak leaf._

But then, later that evening as they were enjoying coffee, Halt said to Will, "What really happened to your oak leaf?"

And Will, of course, was forced to tell him.

* * *

**By the way, this is my 40th story! I feel like I've come such a long way since I forst started here and didn't know how to spell "review."**


End file.
